Return of the Mojo?

Jen left a really funny comment the other day. She said my constant references to my stamping mojo made her think that this would be a good name for a cat. I agree! It might even be a good name for a bunny, should we ever get another one. I can hear it now -- "Stop digging mojo!" "What are you chewing on, Mojo?" "Time for bed, Mojo" Hee Hee!

Anyway, I wouldn't want to announce the triumphant return of the mojo, because I'm not sure it's quite back yet, but I do like the cards I stamped tonight, so that's a step in the right direction.

Let's start with the Supersize Snowflake card I promised you last night. As you can see, the snowflake is so large that in order to stamp the whole thing you'd have to use the entire vertical card front, which I might try at some point. Today, however, I wanted a horizontal card, so this is what i came up with. Not exactly rocket science, but simple can be pretty too.

I first inked just the winter wishes greeting in Blue Bayou and stamped it at the top of the whisper white layer. I then inked up the snowflake with soft sky ink and stamped just about half of the snowflake on the bottom of the layer. I flipped my stamp over to the outline background, inked it up with blue bayou, and stamped the outline onto the card. Because I was stamping the snowflake straight (in terms of card to block orientation) I didn't even need the Stamp-a-ma-jig to line up the outline to the solid stamp -- Woo Hoo! I covered the solid part of the snowflake with two way glue and sprinkled on some dazzling diamonds glitter. Fun!

The first card put me in a snowflake mood so I decided to keep going. Last night Jen and I got together to talk about card designs for a series of holiday card Stamp-a-stacks we'll be hosting jointly with our friend Sara in September, October and November (Third Thursday of every month at 7:00 p.m. in Itasca -- mark your calendars now!) We found lots of great designs, but not nearly enough featuring snowflakes. So I'm hoping maybe one of these cards will be a good candidate.

Anyway, I started by wheeling a 4x5.25 piece of whisper white card stock with the Snowflake wheel in bashful blue. I then went over the entire sheet with my Bold Snowflakes Jumbo Wheel inked up in Night of Navy. the two styles of snowflakes are very different, but I like the way they play off one another. I think it helps that the more delicate snowflakes are stamped in a lighter colors while the bold snowflakes are darker.

After I was done wheeling, I ripped the card stock in half (cool --two card fronts wheeled at once!) and added bashful blue ink to the ripped edge.I mounted the whisper white to a 4x5.25" piece of brocade blue card stock and adhered that to a bashful blue card base. I used the bashful blue marker to ink up the snowflake and night of navy marker to ink up the "winter" on the stamp from Perennial Favorites, and stamped it on whisper white. I punched the image out with the petite tag punch and matted it onto a tag punched from night of navy card stock. I added a brocade blue brad in the center of the snowflake and some bashful blue gingham ribbon. I adhered the tag to the card base with a dimensional and the card was done. Again, It's not particularly elaborate or inventive, but it is kind of cute, right?

But even after stamping the two snowflake cards I still did not feel like the creative juices were flowing properly. I definitely needed some major mojo infusion. And what finally got me out of the funk? The Coldwater creek catalog, of course! I swear, their buyers have such a fantastic eye for colors! All I have to do is look at their clothes and the ideas start flowing!

The first thing that got my mind racing was this shirt. I really loved the combination of groovy guava, taken with teal, lovely lilac and elegant eggplant. This color combination was so far out of my usual comfort zone, and yet it worked beautifully! So I knew that if i just put these colors together I would have a cool card.

Once I had the color combination, I needed to choose a stamp set. I thought the colors lent themselves to flowers, but they had to be delicate yet not too delicate, KWIM? I wasn't sure I did either until I saw my Polka Dots and Paisley set and realized that it was perfect!

The trickiest part was inking up the solid flower with the groovy guava ink pad and the stem with the taken with teal ink pad. Once I managed that the rest of the card just came together. I stamped the flower outline in taken with teal and the sentiment in groovy guava, all on whisper white card stock. I tore all the edges of the whisper white card stock and added a taken with teal mat. I adhered it to a larger piece of lovely lilac, tore off the bottom edge and added some double stitched groovy guava grosgrain ribbon.

I used elegant eggplant for my base, stamped in elegant eggplant with the polka dots stamp. I added a strip of taken with teal and another strip of groovy guava prints designer double sided paper on to p of the teal strip. Finally, I added the pain image and I was done.

And you know what? I love it! Stamping this card was so much fun! It just came together naturally, thanks to the good folks at you know where.

So I don't know if this is really the return of the mojo or just a lucky fluke, but whatever it is, I'll take it!